Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Hamantaschen

Of course, to begin on a tangent, in Hebrew "Oznei Homon" is zeh l'ummaszeh of "Oznei Yehoshua" in Parashas Amalek at the end of Beshalach. Whythey have three corners, any bar bei rav d'chad yoma knows, correspondingto Chabad, as Shlomo ha'Melech says Simcha only comes after Chochmo andDa'as (Koheles 2:25). Why Shlomo leaves Bina out of the equation is aninteresting question which I will leave to keen minds out there to resolve.But as we know, in Kabbalah Bil'am is the penimi'us of the Kelipah ofAmalek, and he claimed to be "yodei'ah da'as elyon" - and Chazal deride him- "afilu da'as behemto lo yoda" - so the true da'as is that which is beyondhuman da'as (I know this is not quite accurate, terminologically, but da'aselyon, *not* da'as tachton) - *ad de'lo yoda*. And this is of course allmerumaz in "ozen she'shom'o al Har Sinai" - which does not require profoundintellectual thought (compare Hakhel: "anashim bo'im lilmod, nashim ba'oslishmo'ah - please don't take offense at the politically incorrectreference!) - but to hear the "kol demomo dakka." Amalek, as everyoneknows, casts doubts (gimatriya = safek) but Moshe imbedded ("*sim* b'ozneiYehoshua") clarity in Jewish hearts (the Besht's teitch in "Bas Kol" forthose willing to hear).

Anyway, nachzor l'inyaneinu, that Hamataschen are clearly meant to serve asthe third breakthrough of the C-O. Ca'aOo is by klapping Haman. CoOo is theikkar mitzvas ha'yom, and CiOo (Yiddish: tasch = pocket) is throughHaman-taschen. The filling comes through.

This has, of course, very important halachic ramifications, as clearly onecannot be yotzei with a sealed or covered Hamantasch.